University Writing · English And Comparative Literature
Very reasonable. She does not assign long, useless, mind-numbing material. We had readings due for each class (but most were short and interesting, there were only two assignments that were longer than 20 pages) Exercises due approximately every other class. Not a breeze, but definitely lighter than other UW classes!
Typical UWriting: Innocuous biweekly exercises that fade away as the class progresses. The canonical three essays (no retrospective) on which your final grade is based.
Fairly heavy, if you take every little writing exercise seriously. It's really not that bad, but she puts real pressure on coming on time and has little to no flexibility/sympathy for typical student laziness. You've got the vast majority of students running to class breathless with piping-hot papers in their hand, usually about 30 seconds late. You can choose not to do the writing exercises that are due every class, but she will hate your guts for it. You can never, ever miss this class due to her deliberate planning of exercises. If you miss, she will be sure to acknowledge that your lack of attendance for the day was a burdensome, searing hole that messed everything up for you and the class. Writing exercises tend to be a part of daily activities that involve partners and sharing aloud, so you'd better come up with something for every class to avoid embarrassment. Otherwise, ultimately four essays make up the grade. Weighted larger as you progress through the course. No, that's not as good as you think it is.
Moderate -- heavier in the beginning, eases off after the first month.
Couldn't agree more with the Nov.14 reviewer. I was doomed to take UW, but he made it bearable or indeed I enjoyed his class immensely, partly because the interactions between him and class often caused laughter. His full-page+ comments/feedback on each essay were incredibly helpful and insightful. Genuinely cool, funny, laid-back guy who will be created 1st Baron of ... Czech or whatever country and become Baron Kornhaber in the near future lol Btw, he's a CU grad, but did you know he is a Harvard College grad? I noticed that when I first saw him wearing a crimson scarf. Google his name, and you will find out more about him. Bad news is he won't be teaching at CU anymore.
Standard 4 UW papers. However, you aren't turning them in to any old professor, you are turning them into Liza- aka a privilege!
There were 4 essays – critical response, conversion, research, opinion editorial worth 20%, 25%, 35%, 20% of the grade, respectively – then smaller writing assignments (~1 paragraph each) due for majority of the class sessions that were required, but not graded. The papers had two separate deadlines – one for creating formal drafts that would get reviewed by Prof. Schlauraff herself and my classmates, and the final one due ~2 weeks later. Overall, I found the workload to be mostly manageable, whereas the only exception was for the research paper, which had felt fairly hefty considering the time span we had to work on its original draft. The grading felt fair and not too harsh for these, so I would say the class was fairly doable. The main thing I’d say to keep in mind when taking the course is to pace yourself well with the assignments so you don’t end up cramming everything in a minimal amount of days.
Whatever you do, do not take Kanika's class. She is a nice person and extremely intelligent, however, this class will make you want to drop out of school. I got a good grade in this course, but it accounted for at least 3/4 of all the work I did for all of my courses this semester. In comparing what she required of our class with what was required of friends in other classes, I was shocked. She even told our class in the first couple of weeks that she did not give A's. I would have found these requirements understandable if they had helped me really become a better writer, but I think the only beneficial result of these absurd expectations was just that papers I had to write for other classes seemed easy in comparison to what Kanika had us write. University Writing is enough of a pain to deal with, do not compound the difficulty by taking the class with Kanika.
Standard for L&R (or I guess, the old L&R now that it's being replaced). A couple grammar quizzes, 10 short papers, 5 longer, revised papers. The papers during the end of the semester are much more important than the ones at the beginning, hopefully you will improve over the course of the semester and completely master the 3-part essay form. He's not a difficult grader, and he encourages communication between the students and himself.
She made the workload manageable and gave us time in class to workshop.